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The Theory of Missions to the Heathen. 



SERMON 



ORDINATION OF MR. EDWARD WEBB, 



AS A MISSIONARY TO THE HEATHEN. 



Ware, Mass., Oct 23, 1845. 



BY RUEUS ANDERSON, 

One of the Secretaries of the American Board of Commissioners for 
Foreign Missions. 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF CROCKER AND BREWSTER, 
47, Washington-street. 

1845. 



The Theory of Missions to the Heathen. 



SERMON 



ORDINATION OF MR. EDWARD WEBB, 



AS A MISSIONARY TO THE HEATHEN. 



Ware, Mass., Oct. 23, 1845. 



BY RUFUS ANDERSON, 

One of the Secretaries of the American Board of Commissioners for 
Foreign Missions. 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF CROCKER AND BREWSTER, 
47, Washington-street. 

1845. 






* ft* 



.c- 



SERMON. 



2 Corinthians v : 20. 

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ; as though God did 
beseech you by us, we pray you in ChrisVs stead, be ye recon- 
ciled to God. 

Comparing the present period of the church with the 
apostolical, we come to two very different results respect- 
ing our own age. One is, that the facilities enjoyed by 
us for propagating the gospel throughout the world, are 
vastly greater than those enjoyed by the apostles. The 
other is, that it is far more difficult now, than it was then, 
to impart a purely spiritual character to missions among 
the heathen. 

As to facilities, we have the advantage of the apostles 
in all respects, except the gift of tongues. The world, as 
a whole, was never so open to the preacher of the gospel 
since the introduction of the Christian dispensation. The 
civilization, too, that is connected with modern science, 
is all connected also with Christianity in some of its 
forms. I should add, that the civilization which the gos- 
pel has conferred upon our own New England is the 
highest and best, in a religious point of view, the world 
has yet seen. 



But, on the other hand, this very perfection of our own 
social religious state becomes a formidable hindrance to 
establishing such purely spiritual missions among heathen 
nations, as were those of the apostolical times. Not 
that this is the only hindrance to this result ; there are 
many others, but this is an important one. For, the 
Christian religion is identified, in all our conceptions of it 
from our earliest years, with the almost universal diffu- 
sion among its professors of the blessings of education, 
industry, civil liberty, family government, social order, 
the means of a respectable livelihood, and a well ordered 
community. Hence our idea of piety in converts among 
the heathen very generally involves the acquisition and 
possession, to a great extent, of these blessings ; and our 
idea of the propagation of the gospel by means of mis- 
sions is, to an equal extent, the creation among heathen 
tribes and nations of a higMy improved state of society, such 
as we ourselves enjoy. And for this vast intellectual, 
moral and social transformation we allow but a short 
time. We expect the first generation of converts to 
Christianity, even among savages, to come into all our 
fundamental ideas of morals, manners, political economy, 
social organization, right, justice, equity ; although many 
of these are ideas which our own community has been 
ages in acquiring. If we discover that converts under 
the torrid zone go but half clothed, that they are idle on 
a soil where a small amount of labor will supply their 
wants, that they sometimes forget the apostle's cautions 
to his converts, not to lie one to another, and to steal no 
more, in communities where the grossest vice scarcely 
affects the reputation, and that they are slow to adopt 
our ideas of the rights of man ; we at once doubt the 
genuineness of their conversion, and the faithfulness of 
their missionary instructors. Nor is it surprising that this 
feeling is strongest, as it appears to be, in the most en- 
lightened and favored portions of our country ; since it is 
among those whose privilege it is to dwell upon the 
heights of Zion, that we have the most reason to expect this 



feeling, until they shall have reflected maturely on the 
difference there is between their own circumstances and 
states of mind, and those of a heathen and barbarous 
people. 

Now the prevalence of these sentiments at home has 
exerted an influence on all the missions. Nor is the in- 
fluence new. You see it in the extent to which farmers 
and mechanics — pious but secular men — were sent, many 
years ago, along with the missionaries, to assist in re- 
claiming the savages of the wilderness from the chase 
and settling them in communities like our own — a prac- 
tice now nearly discontinued, except where the expense 
is borne by the national government. 

Unless this influence is guarded against by missiona- 
ries and their directors, the result is that the missions 
have a two-fold object of pursuit ; the one, that simple and 
sublime spiritual object of the ambassador for Christ 
mentioned in the text, " persuading men to be reconciled 
to God;" the other, the reorganizing, by various direct 
means, of the structure of that social system, of which 
the converts form a part. Thus the object of the mis- 
sions becomes more or less complicated, leading to a 
complicated, burdensome, and perhaps expensive course 
of measures for its attainment. 

I may be allowed, therefore, to invite attention to what 
is conceived to be our true and only office and work in 
missions to the heathen. " Now then we are ambassadors 
for Christ ; as though God did beseech you by us, we 
pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." 
The ambassadors here spoken of were missionaries — mis- 
sionaries to the heathen, for such were Paul and his asso- 
ciates ; sent, instead of Christ the Mediator, on a ministry 
withheld from angels, to plead with rebellious men to be- 
come reconciled to God. They are ambassadors sent on 
the same general errand that brought the Lord Jesus from 
heaven, and their commission is to proclaim abroad the 
fact, history, design and effect of his atonement, and bring 



its renovating power to bear as widely as possible upon 
the human race. 

It will be necessary to dwell a short time on the lead- 
ing aspects of this enterprise. And, 

1. The vocation of the missionary who is sent to the 
heathen, is not the same with that of the settled pastor. 

The work of human salvation is one of vast extent, 
whether we regard the time it is to occupy, the objects 
upon which it operates, the agents it employs, or the re- 
sults which are to be accomplished. And it is performed 
with that regard for order and gradual developement, 
which generally characterizes the works of God. Upon 
the Lord Jesus it devolved to make the atonement, thus 
preparing the way, as none else could do, for reconciling 
man to his Maker ; and then He returned to the heaven 
whence he came. "Upon his immediate disciples it then 
devolved to make proclamation of the atonement, and its 
kindred and dependent doctrines, throughout the world, 
the whole of which world, excepting Judea, was then hea- 
then. This they were to do as his representatives and 
ambassadors ; and to expedite the work, they were fur- 
nished with the gift of tongues, and an extraordinary 
divine influence attended their preaching. Their com- 
mission embraced only the proclamation of the gospel 
and planting its institutions. As soon as the gospel by 
their means had gained a footing in any one district of 
country, they left the work in charge to others, called 
elders and also bishops or overseers of the flock and 
church of God, whom they ordained for the purpose. 
Sometimes they did not remain even long enough to pro- 
vide spiritual guides for the churches they had planted. 
" For this cause," says Paul to Titus, " left I thee in 
Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are 
wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had ap- 
pointed thee." The elders were the pastors of the new 
churches. Elsewhere the apostle speaks of different de- 
partments of labor and influence assigned to the ministers 



of Christ. He says that when Christ ascended up on 
high he gave gifts unto men ; to some apostles, to some 
prophets, to some evangelists, to some pastors and teach- 
ers. Whatever was the peculiar office of ' prophets ' and 
1 teachers/ none can doubt that ' evangelists ' were fellow- 
laborers of the apostles in the missionary work, and that 
1 pastors ' had the stated care and instruction of particular 
churches. Now missionaries are the true and proper suc- 
cessors of the apostles and evangelists, and their sphere 
of duty is not the same with that of pastors, who are suc- 
cessors, in their sacred functions, not so much of the 
apostles and evangelists, as of the elders and bishops. 
It enters into the nature of the pastor's relation, that he 
remain or be intended to remain long the spiritual in- 
structor of some one people. It is indeed as really his 
business to call sinners to repentance, as it is that of the 
missionary ; but, owing to his more permanent relations, 
and to the fact that he is constituted the religious guide 
and instructor of his converts during the whole period of 
their earthly pilgrimage, his range of duty in respect to 
them is more comprehensive than that of the missionary 
in respect to his converts. The pastor is charged, in 
common with the missionary, with reconciling men to 
God ; and he has also an additional charge, arising from 
the peculiar circumstances of his relation, with respect to 
their growth in grace and sanctification. But the mis- 
sionary's great business in his personal labors, is with 
the unconverted. His embassy is to the rebellious, to 
beseech them, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God. 
His vocation, as a soldier of the cross, is to make con- 
quests, and to go on, in the name of his divine Master, 
'conquering and to conquer;' committing the security 
and permanency of his conquests to another class of men 
created expressly for the purpose. The idea of continued 
conquest is fundamental in missions to the heathen, and 
is vital to their spiritual life and efficiency. It will doubt- 
less be found on inquiry, that missions among the hea- 
then have always ceased to be healthful and efficient, 



8 

have ceased to evince the true missionary spirit in its 
strength, whenever they have ceased to be actively ag- 
gressive upon the kingdom of darkness. 

In a word, the missionary prepares new fields for pas- 
tors; and when they are thus prepared, and competent 
pastors are upon the ground, he ought himself to move 
onward, — the pioneer in effect of a Christian civilization — 
but in office, work and spirit, an ambassador for Christ, 
to preach the gospel where it has not been preached. 
And, whatever may be said with respect to pastors, it is 
true of the missionary, that he is to keep himself as free 
as possible from entanglements with literature, science 
and commerce, and with questions of church government, 
politics and social order. For, 

2. The object and work of the missionaiy are pre- 
eminently spiritual. 

His embassy and message are as really from the other 
world, as if he were an angel from heaven. He who de- 
votes himself to the work of foreign missions, comes 
thereby under peculiar engagements and obligations. 
His situation is in some important respects peculiar, com- 
pared with that of all others. His sphere of action lies 
beyond the bounds of his native land, beyond the bounds 
of Christendom, where society and the family and human 
nature lie all in ruins. As the great Originator and Lord 
of the enterprise came from the realms of heavenly 
blessedness to this world when it was one universal 
moral waste, so his representatives and ambassadors 
have now to go from those portions of the earth that have 
been illuminated by his gospel to regions that are as yet 
unvisited by these benign influences. They are therefore 
required preeminently to renounce the world. From the 
nature of the case they make a greater sacrifice of worldly 
blessings, than their brethren at home can do, however 
much disposed. They forsake their native land and the 
loved scenes of their youthful days. Oceans separate 
them from their relatives and friends. They encounter 



9 

torrid heats and strange diseases. They traverse pathless 
wilds, and are exposed to burning suns and chilling 
night-damps, to rain or snow. Yet these things, when in 
their most repulsive forms, are reckoned by missionaries 
as the least of the trials appertaining to their vocation. 
The foreign missionary's greatest sacrifices and trials are 
social and religious. It is here that he has a severity of 
trial, which even the domestic missionary ordinarily can- 
not have. Whatever the devoted servant of Christ upon 
the frontiers may endure for the present, he sees the 
waves of a christian civilization not far distant rolling on- 
ward, and knows that there will soon be all around him 
gospel institutions and a Christian community. But it is 
not so with the foreign missionary. It requires great 
strength of faith in Christ for him to look at his rising 
family, and then with unruffled feelings towards the 
future. True, he sees the gospel taking hold of minds 
and hearts in consequence of his ministry, and souls con- 
verted and reconciled to God ; he gathers churches ; he 
sees around him the germs of a future Christian civiliza- 
tion. But then, owing to the imperfect and disordered 
state of society in heathen communities, he dares not an- 
ticipate so much social advancement for two or three 
generations to come, as would make it pleasant to think 
of leaving his children among the people for whose 
spiritual well-being he delights to spend his own strength 
and years. And then his heart yearns ofttimes to be 
braced and cheered by social Christian fellowship of a 
higher order than he finds among his converts from hea- 
thenism. It is not the 'flesh-pots of Egypt' he looks 
back upon, nor any of the pleasant things that used to 
gratify his senses in his native land ; but he does some- 
times think of the kindred spirits he would find in that 
land, and of the high intellectual and spiritual fellowship 
he would enjoy in their society, and how it would refresh 
and strengthen his own mind and heart. Often there is 
a feeling of weakness and faintness arising from the want 
2 



10 

of such fellowship, which is the most painful part of his 
sufferings. The foreign missionary is obliged, indeed, 
to act preeminently upon the doctrine of a future life, 
and of God's supreme and universal government, and to 
make a deliberate sacrifice of time for eternity, and of 
earth for heaven. And this he does as an act of duty to 
his Redeemer, for the sake of extending the influence of 
his redemption, and bringing its reconciling and saving 
power to bear upon the myriads of immortal souls dwel- 
ling beyond the utmost verge of the Christian church. 

And thus the foreign missionary is driven, as it were, 
by the very circumstances of his position, as well as 
led by his commission and his convictions of duty, to 
concentrate his attention and energies upon the soul, 
ruined though immortal. And truly it is a vast and 
mighty ruin he beholds — more affecting to look upon 
in the light of its own proper eternity, than would be the 
desolation of all the cities in the world. It is too vast a 
ruin for a feeble band to attempt the restoration of every 
part at once. As Nehemiah concentrated his energies 
upon rebuilding the walls of the city of his fathers, 
rightly concluding that if the walls were rebuilt and 
threw their encouraging protection around, the other por- 
tions of the city would rise of course ; so the missionary, 
as a thoughtful and wise man, sets himself to reconcile 
the alienated heart to God, believing that that point being 
gained, and the principle of obedience implanted, and a 
highly spiritual religion introduced, a social renovation 
will be sure to follow. He considers not, therefore, so 
much the relations of man to man, as of man to God ; 
not so much the relations and interests of time, as those 
of eternity; not so much the intellectual and social 
degradation and debasement, the result of barbarism or 
of iron-handed oppression, as the alienation and estrange- 
ment of the heart of man from his Maker, and the deadly 
influence of hateful and destroying passions upon his 
soul. As when a house is burning in the dead of night, 
our first and great concern is not for the house, but for 



II 

the sleeping dwellers within ; so the missionary's first and 
great concern is for the soul, to save it from impending 
wrath. 

And the means he employs in this ministry of recon- 
ciliation, are as single and spiritual as the end he has in 
view. He preaches the cross of Christ. The apostle Paul 
declares that this was his grand theme. And it is re- 
markable how experience is bringing modern missiona- 
ries to the same result. Their grand agent is oral instruc- 
tion ; their grand theme is the cross. And now, perhaps 
not less than in the days of the apostles, the Holy Spirit 
appears to restrict his converting influences among the 
heathen chiefly to this species of agency, and to this grand 
theme. Excepting in the schools, the usefulness of books 
is chiefly with those whose hearts have been in some 
measure moved and roused by the preached word. It 
appears to be the will of the great Redeemer, who came 
in person to begin the work, that his salvation shall every 
where be proclaimed in person by his ambassadors, and 
that his message of grace shall have all the impressiveneSs 
of look and voice and manner, which they are able to give 
it. After the manner of their illustrious predecessor, they 
must teach publicly, and from house to house, and warn 
every one night and day with tears. The necessity of 
this in order to reconcile rebellious men to God, has not 
been diminished by the multiplication of books through 
the press. Weil-authenticated cases of conversion among 
pagans, by means of books alone, not excepting even 
the Scriptures, are exceedingly rare. By the divine 
appointment, there must also be the living preacher ; and 
his preaching must not be " with the wisdom of words, 
lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect/" 

You see, then, Brethren, the high spiritual calling of 
the missionary. At the very threshold of his work, he is 
required, in a preeminent degree, to renounce the world. 
His message, wherein lies his duty and all his hope of 
success, is concerning the cross of Christ ; and the object 



12 

of it is to restore the lost spiritual relation between man 
and God. The impression he is designing to make is 
directly upon the soul. And his work lies so altogether 
out of the common range of worldly ideas, and even of 
the ideas of many professed Christians, that multitudes 
have no faith in it ; it is to them like a root out of a dry 
ground, and they see no form nor comeliness in it, and 
nothing that should lead them to desire it. Nor is it until 
the civilizing results come out, that these unsanctified or 
very partially sanctified persons can give the missionary 
work any degree of their respect. 

The necessity of connecting a system of education with 
modern missions, is not inconsistent with the view we 
have taken of the true theory of missions to the heathen. 
The apostles had greatly the advantage of us in procuring 
elders, or pastors for their churches. In their day the 
most civilized portions of the world were heathen — as if 
to show the weakness of mere human learning and wis- 
dom ; and the missionary labors of the apostles and their 
associates, so far as we have authentic accounts of them, 
were in the best educated and in some respects highly 
educated portions of the earth. Wherever they went, 
therefore, they found mind in comparatively an erect, in- 
telligent, reasoning posture ; and it would seem that men 
could easily have been found among their converts, who, 
with some special but brief instruction concerning the 
gospel, would be fitted to take the pastoral care of 
churches. But it appears that, until schools expressly for 
training pastors were in operation, — as ere long they were 
at Alexandria, Caesarea, Antioch, Edessa, and elsewhere, 
— it pleased God essentially to aid in qualifying men for 
the office of pastors by a miraculous agency ; the Holy 
Ghost exerting upon them a supernatural influence, by 
which their understandings were strengthened and spirit- 
ually illuminated, and they gifted with powers of utterance. 

But, at the present time, the whole civilized world is at 
least nominally Christian, and modern missions must be 



13 

prosecuted among uncivilized, or at least partially civil- 
ized tribes and nations, from which useful ideas have in 
great measure perished. Even in those heathen nations 
which make the greatest pretensions to learning, as in 
India, we find but little truth existing on any subject. 
Their history, chronology, geography, astronomy, their no- 
tions of matter and mind, and their views of creation and 
providence, religion and morals, are exceedingly destitute 
of truth. And yet it is not so much a vacuity of mind 
here that we have to contend with, as it is plenitude of 
error — the unrestrained accumulations and perversions of 
depraved intellect for three thousand years. But among 
savage heathens, it is vacuity of mind, and not a pleni- 
tude, we have to operate upon. For, the savage has few 
ideas, sees only the objects just about him, perceives 
nothing of the relations of things, and occupies his 
thoughts only about his physical experiences and wants. 
He knows nothing of geography, astronomy, history, 
nothing of his own spiritual nature and destiny, and 
nothing of God. 

In these circumstances and without the power of confer- 
ring miraculous gifts, modern missionaries are constrained 
to resort to education in order to procure pastors for their 
churches. They select the most promising candidates, and 
take the usual methods to train them to stand alone and 
firm in the gospel ministry, and to be competent spiritual 
guides to others. This creates, it will be perceived, a ne- 
cessity for a system of education of greater or less extent 
in each of the missions, embracing even a considerable 
number of elementary schools. The whole is designed to 
secure,, through the divine blessing, a competent native 
ministry, who shall aid missionaries in their work, and 
at length take their places. The schools, moreover, of 
every grade, are, or ought to be so many preaching places, 
so many congregations of youth, to whom, often with 
parents and friends attending, the gospel is more or less 
formally proclaimed. 



14 

I have thus endeavored, my Brethren, to set before you 
the foreign missionary enterprise in what I conceive to be 
its true scriptural character ; as an enterprise, the object 
of which, and the sole object, is the reconciling of rebel- 
lious men in heathen lands to God. 

And what is true of the individual missionary, is of 
course equally true o[ the Missionary Society, which di- 
rects his labors and is the medium of his support. The Scp 
ciety sends forth men to be evangelists, rather than perma- 
nent pastors ; and when pastors are required by the progress 
and success of the work, it seeks them among native con- 
verts on the ground. And herein it differs from the ap- 
propriate usages of the Home Missionary Society, which, 
operating on feeble churches within Christian communi- 
ties, or in districts that are soon to be covered with a Chris- 
tian civilization of some sort, sends forth its preachers all 
to become settled pastors as soon as possible. The foreign 
missionary work is in fact a vast evangelism ; with con- 
quest, in order to extend the bounds of the Redeemer's 
kingdom, for its object; having as little to do with the 
relations of this life and the things of the world and sense, 
and as few relations to the kingdoms of this world, as is 
consistent with the successful prosecution of its one grand 
object — the restoring, in the immortal soul of man, of that 
blessed attraction to the Centre of the Spiritual Universe 
which was lost at the fall. 

This method of conducting foreign missions, besides 
its evident conformity to Scripture, is supported by va- 
rious weighty considerations. 

1. It is the only method that, as a system of measures, 
will commend itself strongly to the consciences and re- 
spect of mankind. 

The first mission sent forth under the care of the 
American Board, was such a mission. And it was 
sent to the subjects of a nation, with which our country 
was then unhappily at war. But the missionaries were 
regarded on all hands as belonging preeminently to a 
kingdom not of this world, and having an object of a 



15 

purely spiritual nature. And when, notwithstanding this; 
the policy of the East Indian government would have 
sent them away, it was this that gave convincing and 
overwhelming force to the following appeal made by our 
brethren to the governor of Bombay : 

" We entreat you by the spiritual miseries of the hea~ 
then, who are daily perishing before your eyes, and under 
your Excellency's government, not to prevent us from 
preaching Christ to them. We entreat you by the blood 
of Jesus which he shed to redeem them, — as ministers of 
Him, who has all power in heaven and earth, and who 
with his farewell and ascending voice commanded his 
ministers to go and teach all nations, we entreat you not 
to prohibit us from teaching these heathens. By all the 
principles of our holy religion, by which you hope to be 
saved, we entreat you not to hinder us from preaching 
the same religion to these perishing idolaters. By all the 
solemnities of the judgment day, when your Excellency 
must meet your heathen subjects before God's tribunal, 
we entreat you not to hinder us from preaching to them 
that gospel, which is able to prepare them, as well as you, 
for that awful day." 

Nothing but a consciousness of the high spirituality of 
their object and the impossibility of connecting it with 
questions of a secular nature, imparted boldness to our 
brethren to make this appeal, and gave it favor and effi- 
cacy in the high places of power. And it is this, which 
lately preserved our brethren on Mount Lebanon harm- 
less amid the fury and carnage of a civil war. And this 
it is that imparts a degree of inviolability to the persons 
and efforts of Protestant heralds of the cross among all the 
nations which respect their religion. Jt is the grand pre- 
dominance of the spiritual in their characters and pursuits, 
showing that they really do belong to a kingdom not of this 
world, and are not to be involved in the conflicting rela- 
tions and interests of earthly communities. English states- 
men in India acknowledge, that the general prevalence 
of Christianity in that country would at length make it 



16 

impossible for their nation to hold the country in subjection, 
and yet they encourage the labors of the missionary. This 
they do because the missionary's object, whatever be the 
known tendency of his labors, is not to change the civil re- 
lations of the people, but to give them the gospel and save 
their souls ; and because these statesmen are convinced 
in their couscieuces, that this is an object of unquestionable 
benevolence and obligation, for which Christ died, for 
which the ministry was instituted, which at this day is to 
be countenanced and encouraged at all events by every 
man claiming the name of a Christian ; and which, how- 
ever humbling it shall prove in its results to avaricious 
and ambitious nations, cannot be otherwise than beneficial 
on the broad scale of the world and to the great family 
of man. 

2. This method of conducting missions is the only one, 
on which missionaries can be obtained in large numbers, 
and kept cheerfully in the field. 

For objects that are not spiritual and eternal, men will 
seldom renounce the world for themselves and their fami- 
lies, as missionaries must do. Mere philosophers have 
never gone as missionaries ; and seldom do mere philan- 
thropists go into the heathen world, nor would they re- 
main long, should they happen to go. Nor will a merely 
impulsive, unreflecting piety ever bring about a steady, 
persevering, laborious, self-denying mission. It generally 
gives out before the day for embarkation, or retires from 
the field before the language is acquired and the battle 
fairly commenced. Nothing but the grand object of 
reconciling men to God, with a view to their eternal salva- 
tion, and the happiness and glory thus resulting to Christ's 
kingdom, will call any considerable number of missiona- 
ries into the foreign field, and keep them cheerfully there. 
And it is necessary that this object be made to stand out 
alone, in its greatness and majesty, towering above all 
other objects, as the hoary-headed monarch of the Alps 
towers above the inferior mountains around him. It is 
not fine conceptions of the beautiful and orderly in human 



n 

society that will fire the zeal of a missionary ; it is not rich 
and glowing conceptions of the life and duties of a pastor ; 
it is not broad and elevated views of theological truth, nor 
precise and comprehensive views of the relations of that 
truth to moral subjects. It is something more than all 
this, often the result of a different cast of mind and 
combination of ideas. The true missionary character in- 
deed is based upon a single sublime conception — that of 
reconciling immortal souls to God. To gain this with an 
effective practical power, the missionary needs himself to 
have passed from death unto life, and to have had deep 
experience of his own enmity to God and hell-desert, and 
of the vast transforming agency of the reconciling grace 
of God in Christ. As this conception has more of moral 
greatness and sublimity in it than any other that ever 
entered the mind of man, no missionary can attain to the 
highest elevation and dignity of his calling, unless he have 
strong mental power and a taste for the morally sublime. 
This the apostle Paul had. What conceptions of his 
office and work and of spiritual things animated the great 
soul of that apostle ! " Now, then, we are ambassadors 
for Christ; as though God did beseech you by us, we 
pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." — 
" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered 
into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared 
for them that love him " — " Oh the depth of the riches 
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God." — " Able to 
comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and 
length and depth and height, and to know the love of 
Christ, which passeth knowledge." 

To make persevering and useful missionaries, however, 
it is not necessary that the power of thought and of spir- 
itual apprehension should come nearly up to that of the 
apostle Paul. But there should be a similar cast of mind, 
similar views and feelings, and a similar character. 
There should be a steady and sober, but real enthusiasm, 
sustained by a strongly spiritualized doctrinal experience, 
3 



18 

and by the " powers of the world to come," intent upon 
reconciling men to God from a conviction of its trans- 
cendant importance. 

Such men must compose the great body of every mis- 
sion, or it will not be worth supporting in the field ; and 
the only way such men can be induced to engage in the 
work, is by having the idea of spiritual conquest, through 
the cross of Christ, the predominant and characteristic idea 
of the enterprise. That will attract their attention while 
they are preparing for the ministry ; that will enlist their 
consciences and draw their hearts ; that will constrain 
them to refuse every call to settle at home, however in- 
viting; and if they have learning and eloquence, that 
will lead them the more to desire to go where Christ has 
not been preached, where useful talent of every kind will 
find the widest scope for exercise. 

Nor will any other scheme of missions, that was ever 
devised, keep missionaries cheerfully in the field. It is 
only by having the eye intent on the relations the hea- 
then sustain to God, and on their reconciliation to him, 
and by cultivating the spirit of dependence on God and 
the habit of looking to him for success, that the piety of a 
mission can be kept flourishing, its bond of union perfect, 
its active powers all in full, harmonious and happy exercise. 
And unless these results are secured, missionaries, like 
the soldiers of a disorganized army, will lose their 
courage, their energy and zeai, their serenity and health, 
and will leave the field. Alas for a mission, where the 
absorbing object of attention with any of its members is 
any thing else, than how Christ crucified shall be preached 
to the heathen so as most effectually to persuade them to 
be reconciled to God. 

3. This method of conducting missions is the only one, 
that will subjugate the heatVn world to God. 

No other will be found mighty to pull down the strong 
holds of the god of this world. The weapons of our war- 
fare must be spiritual. The eremy will laugh at the 
shaking of a spear, at diplomatic skill, at coram ce, 



19 

learning, philanthropy, and every scheme of social or- 
der and refinement. He stands in fear of nothing 
but the cross of Christ, and therefore we must rely 
on nothing else. With that we may boldly pass all 
his outworks and entrenchments, and assail his very 
citadel. So did Philip, when he preached Jesus as 
the way of reconciliation to the eunuch; so did Peter, 
when preaching to the centurion ; so did Apollos, when 
preaching to the Greeks ; so did Paul, through his whole 
missionary career. It is wonderful what faith those 
ancient worthies had in the power of a simple statement 
of the doctrine of. salvation through the blood of Christ. 
But they had felt its power in their own hearts, they 
saw it on the hearts of others, and they found reason to 
rely on nothing else. And the experience of modern 
missions has done much to teach the inefficacy of all 
things else, separate from this. Who does not kiiow, that 
the only cure for the deep-seated disorders of mankind 
must be wrought in the heart, and that nothing operates 
there like the doctrine of salvation by the cross of Christ ? 
This is true in the most highly civilized communities ; 
but perhaps it is specially true among benighted heathens. 
In their deplorable moral degradation, they need just such 
an argument, striking even the very senses, and convin- 
cing of sin, of their own lost state, and of the love of God. 
Nothing else will be found like that to bridge the mighty 
gulf which separates their thoughts from God and the 
spiritual world. Nothing else will concentrate, like that, 
the rays of divine truth and grace upon their frozen affec- 
tions. With the truth, that God so loved the world as to 
give his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on 
him should not perish but have everlasting life, we go forth 
through the heathen world ; and, with any thing like the 
faith in its efficacy through the Holy Spirit which the 
apostles had, we shall be blessed with much of their suc- 
cess. Yes, my Brethren, this is the only effectual way of 
prosecuting missions among the heathen — holding up 

CHRIST AS THE ONLY SAVIOR OF LOST SINNERS. It 



20 

requires the fewest men, the least expense, the shortest 
time. It makes the least demand for learning in the 
great body of the laborers. It involves the least compli- 
cation in means and measures. It is the only course that 
has the absolute promise of the presence of Christ, or that 
may certainly look for the aid of the Holy Spirit. It 
keeps Christ constantly before the missionary's own soul, 
as an object of intensest interest and desire, with a vast 
sanctifying, sustaining, animating influence on his own 
mind and preaching. It furnishes him with a power 
transcending all that human wisdom ever contrived, for 
rousing and elevating the soul of man and drawing it 
heavenward — the idea of love, infinite and infinitely dis- 
interested, personified in the Lord Jesus, and suffering to 
the death to save rebellious and ruined man ! And if the 
doctrine comes glowing from our own experience, we shall 
not fail to get the attention of the heathen, and our success 
among them will far exceed what we might expect among 
gospel-hardened sinners here at home. I might dwell 
long on the history of missions, ancient and modern, in the 
most satisfactory illustration of this point, did the time 
permit ; but it is not necessary. 

Let me add, that there is no way so direct and effectual 
as this, to remove the social disorders and evils that af- 
flict the heathen world ; indeed, there is no other way. 
Every specific evil and sin does not need and cannot 
have a separate remedy, for they are all streams from one 
fountain, having a common origin in a depraved and re- 
bellious heart. Urge home, then, the divinely appointed 
remedy for a wicked heart ; purify the fountain ; let love to 
God and man fill the soul ; and soon its influence will ap- 
pear in every department and relation of life. If reforms 
in religion and morals are not laid deep in the heart, they 
will be deceptive, and at all events transient. The evil 
spirit will return in some form, and with seven-fold 
power. New England owes her strong repugnance to 
slavery, and her universal rejection of that monstrous evil, 
to the highly evangelical nature of her preaching. And 



21 

were the whole southern section of our own land, or even 
a considerable portion of it, favored with such highly- 
evangelical preaching, slavery could not there long exist. 
But in heathen lands especially, an effective public senti- 
ment against sin, in any of its outward forms, can be 
created no where, except in the church ; and it can be 
there created only by preaching Christ in his offices and 
works of love and mercy, with the aid of the ordinances 
he has given for the benefit of his disciples, especially the 
sacrament of his supper. Thus at length, even in barba- 
rous heathen lands, the force of piety in the hearts of the 
individual members of the church will be raised above 
that of ignorance, prejudice, the power of custom and 
usage, the blinding influence of self-interest falsely appre- 
hended, and the ridicule and frowns of an ungodly and 
perverse world. Indeed, if we would make any thing of 
converts in pagan lands, we must bring them to the ordi- 
nances of the gospel, and into the church, as soon as they 
give satisfactory evidence of regeneration ; for they are 
too child-like, too weak, too ignorant to be left exposed to 
the dangers that exist out of the fold, even until they shall 
have learned all fundamental truths. And besides, the 
school of Christ for young converts from heathenism, stands 
within the fold, and there, certainly, the compassionate Sa- 
vior would have them all gathered, and carried in the arms, 
and cherished " even as a nurse cherisheth her children." 

Finally; This method of conducting missions is the 
only one, that will unite in this work the energies of the 
churches at home. 

Well understood, this will unite the energies of the 
churches — so far as Christians can be induced to 
prosecute missions for the purpose of reconciling men 
to God. Making this the grand aim of missions, and 
pressing the love of Christ home upon the hearts and 
consciences of men, as the grand means of effecting this, 
will certainly commend itself to the understandings and 
feelings of all intelligent Christians. Not only will a 
large number of good and faithful missionaries be obtain- 



22 

ed, but they will be supported, and prayed for, and made 
the objects of daily interest and concern. And how de- 
lightful it is to think, that the Head of the church has 
been pleased to make the object and work of missions so 
entirely simple, so spiritual, and so beyond the possibility 
of exception, that evangelical Christians of every nation 
and name can unite in its promotion. But if we change 
the form of the work, and extend the range of its objects 
of direct pursuit, and of course multiply the measures and 
influences by which it is to be advanced, we then open 
the door for honest and invincible diversities of opinion 
among the best of men, and render it impossible that 
there should be united effort, on a scale at all commensu- 
rate with the work, and for a long period. The church 
militant becomes divided and weak, and is easily para- 
lized and thwarted in its movements by the combined 
and united legions of the Prince of darkness. 

It would seem, therefore, that missions to the heathen 
must have a highly spiritual nature and developement, or 
prove utterly impracticable and abortive. Such, it is 
believed, are the convictions of all who have had much 
experience in such enterprises. Unless missions have this 
nature and developement in a very high degree, they will 
not commend themselves strongly to the consciences and 
respect of mankind ; they will neither command the requi- 
site number of laborers, nor keep them cheerfully in the 
field ; they will prove inadequate to the subjugation of the 
heathen world to God ; nor will they unite in this great 
enterprize the energies and prayers of the churches. In 
a word, they will not continue long to exist, unless Christ 
the Lamb of God be in them, reconciling the world unto 
himself, and causing his servants to make the salvation of 
the souls of men their all-commanding end and aim. 
Men may resolve that it shall be otherwise; but their 
purposes, however decided, will be in vain against the 
unalterable laws, which God has given the work of mis- 
sions to the heathen. 



23 

Beloved Brother, — In the system of missions, with 
which yon are soon to be connected, the aim has been, 
and is more and more, as experience is acquired, to prose- 
cute the work on the principles advocated in this dis- 
course. So far as your own influence is concerned, see 
that the system be rendered still more spiritual in its 
temper, objects, and measures. See, too, that your own 
renunciation of the world is entire before you enter upon 
your self-denying work, and that it be your determination 
to know nothing among the heathen but Christ and him 
crucified. Only by looking constantly unto Jesus, will 
you be able to run with patience the race set before you. 
As an ambassador of Christ, sent to plead with men in his 
stead to be reconciled to God, see that you are true to 
your vocation, and faithful to your trust, and that you 
never descend from the elevated ground you occupy. 
Whatever oscillations in public sentiment there may be 
from time to time in the Christian mind at home, you 
need not fear, if your character, preaching and influence 
are formed on the New Testament, that you will be for- 
gotten in the contributions and prayers of God's people. 
At all events, be faithful unto death, and whatever be 
your lot here below, the result in eternity will be more 
blessed to you, than it is possible for your mind now to 
conceive, or your heart to desire. 

Fathers and Brethren, — Let it be our prayer, that 
God will be pleased to strengthen our own faith in the 
realities of the unseen world. Then shall we be better 
able to pray as we ought for our missionary brethren, that 
they may be intent on their single but great object of 
winning souls to Christ, and be so imbued with the spirit 
of Christ, that his image shall be fully stamped on all their 
converts. Let us urge upon our brethren among the hea- 
then the imperative duty of making full proof of their 
ministry as missionaries, rather than as pastors; and let us 
lay upon them "no greater burden," than the "necessary 
things " appertaining to their high and peculiar vocation. 



24 

We must indeed hold them to the principle, that they shall 
treat those only as loyal subjects of our infinite Sovereign, 
who give evidence of hearty submission and reconcilia- 
tion ; but we will leave it to their better-informed judgments 
to determine, — in the remote, vast and varied, and to us 
almost unknown fields of their labors, — what is and what 
ought to be satisfactory evidence of actual reconciliation. 
Then will our brethren rejoice in having a simple, well- 
sustained, and glorious enterprise before them, and also 
"for the consolation" of the liberty conceded to them by 
the " elders " and the " whole church." In this good old 
way, marked with the footsteps of the apostles, there is 
hope for the world, for the whole world, that it may be 
reconciled to God. And when the principles of love and 
obedience are once restored to men, and men are at peace 
with God, and united to Him, then will they be at peace 
with one another. Then wars will cease, and all oppression. 
Then the crooked in human affairs shall be made straight 
and the rough places plain, the valleys shall be exalted 
and the mountains and hills made low, and the glory of 
the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh see it together. 

" In one sweet symphony of praise, 
Gentile and Jew shall then unite ; 
And Infidelity, ashamed, 
Sink in the abyss of endless night. 

" Soon Afric's long-enslaved sons 
Shall join with Europe's polished race, 
To celebrate, in different tongues, 
The glories of redeeming grace. 

" From east to west, from north to south, 
Emmanuel's kingdom shall extend ; 
And every man, in every face, 
Shall meet a brother and a friend." 



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